Being the new kid in New Kids on the Block wasn't always easy for Joey McIntyre. During an appearance on HuffPost Live on Tuesday, Oct. 28, the boy bander opened up to host Caitlyn Becker about being the youngest and latest to join the group.

McIntyre, now 41 and starring on the CBS series The McCarthys, was brought in to replace ex-member Jaime Kelley, who left after just six months. He joined Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood, and brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight, who had grown up with Kelley in the same Massachusetts town.

"It wasn't a huge shift," the '90s teen idol told Becker, noting that it took three years after that for NKOTB to really hit the big time. "It wasn't like he got fired and then the next day we had a hit record. And he wasn't fired. It just wasn't for him and he moved on."

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Kelley's loss turned out to be McIntyre's gain — but as the baby of the group, he endured a fair share of teasing from his older bandmates. "I was from another town…I was from community theater, kind of a middle class kid," he explained. "These guys were like pretty tough street kids."

That sometimes — but not always — worked to his advantage. "Boys will be boys. They were teenagers. I mean, they weren't awful. They stuck up for me and whatever," he said, "but it was tough to fit in for a while. I mean, I was tiny."